Going Where Justice Calls

Every day since Donald Trump rescinded the Dream Act, one hundred twenty dreamers have lost their DACA protections. This means that they can be deported at any time from the only country they know (and love) to a country that they were born in, but do not recognize in any meaningful way.

Last week, a group of justice seekers decided to speak up.

I was part of a multi-generational gathering of Jews and their allies, of all affiliations and no affiliations. More than one hundred folks milled about at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Sepulveda, listening to Hebrew songs and protest songs, listening to speeches, chanting, clapping, and shmoozing. This was a gathering that would have pleased any program director of any Federation. These hundred plus folks were not, however, at a Federation fundraiser, or a hip synagogue social held outside on the street. This was a political demonstration outside the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The point of the gathering was clear: No vote for a Continuing Resolution (CR) without the passage of the Dream Act. Feinstein voted against the last CR, and we were there to thank her and to strengthen her resolve, the resolve of the Democratic caucus in general to once again demand a clean Dream Act. A Dream Act that does not hold the fates of 800,000 young people hostage to a wall, or an extreme right wing immigration agenda.

One of the most profound questions that is facing our country today is this: What does it mean to be a citizen? Is citizenship merely the result of the accident of birth? The granting of a certificate? The culmination of a bureaucratic odyssey? Or is citizenship a commitment to certain bonds of mutual responsibility and care? Is citizenship perhaps the promise and practice of upholding the ideals of creating a more perfect union? Are the commitments of citizenship actually those commitments to supporting family and community? To working hard and creating human happiness for self and others?

The point of the gathering was clear: No vote for a Continuing Resolution (CR) without the passage of the Dream Act.

The Jewish tradition teaches us that it is, rather, the commitment to mutual care and supporting the weakest among us; to creating a more just and prosperous community and society which defines what a citizen is. And so it is time that we changed the conversation. It is beyond time that we recognize that the dreamers, and their families and all immigrants—documented and undocumented, who are in this city and this country to create a life, to find security or refuge, to enjoy and proliferate the benefits of justice and democracy—are already citizens. We just have to work out how to get them their papers.

The Jewish people is an immigrant people, a refugee people, and a diasporic people. We know in our bodies the precariousness of knocking at the door of countries who did not want us to enter, and the promise of those who opened their doors. The Jewish community in the United States, after a pretty rocky start, has enjoyed the benefits of security and stability that are the result of being welcomed to this country.

We also know what happens when citizenship is narrowly defined based solely on the accident of birthplace or skin color. We remember that when Jews were deported from Paris during World War II, the buses wound their ways through the streets filled with Parisians who knew who the passengers were, knew what was happening to them, and where they would end up, and did not protest—because they didn’t consider the Jews citizens. So-called upstanding citizens with the right papers and the right blood and the right race, let this happen.

We will not let this happen again.

The sting of disappointment in the evening was that though the Jews were there, (gathered by Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, together with IKAR and Reform CA) the Federations were not. The “leadership” of the Jewish community need not consult the latest Pew research poll to find out where the Jews, young and old, are. They are on the corner of Santa Monica and Sepulveda, and similar street corners in dozens of other cities and in our nation’s capital. They are where justice calls.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen is the Rabbi-in-Residence for Bend the Arc: Jewish Action in Southern California.

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/230667/going-justice-calls/Up Next

Everyone Counts

230535

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/230535/everyone-counts/

I’m a Dreamer Afraid of a Nightmare

Depression, anxiety, frustration: This was my reality as an undocumented young woman living in the United States. For many years, the love and support of my family was the only thing that sustained me.

In 2012, my life changed with the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals federal program, known as DACA. A weight was lifted off my shoulders when I learned I would be able to live a normal life. I immediately began to daydream as I had when I was a little girl, optimistic about my new life in the U.S. My new DACA status would enable me to finally be able to come out of the shadows — not only to survive, but to thrive.

My newfound joy and excitement and that of many others like me sparked attacks from local politicians. In Arizona, the state I call home, officials maneuvered to bar residents in the program from obtaining driver’s licenses, and a lawsuit against education access for DACA program recipients immediately followed. These efforts compelled me to join a local organization and become a community organizer.

As I integrated myself into the immigrant youth movement, I continued to live my life. The fight for justice brought me many things: confidence, knowledge and a new perspective on life. But most important, it brought me love.

In 2015, my son was born, instantly bringing light into my world. I had carried him for nine months with mixed emotions of hope and fear. I shared the same fears of most expectant mothers, but I also bore worries in my heart they did not. I thought about how the world would welcome the child of a “Dreamer.” I cried when I played out the scenarios in my head. What if the government ended DACA and tried to deport me?

What happens to our son if ICE comes to tear our family apart in the middle of the night?

The stress was relentless, but I made it through and found ease at the first sight of my baby’s smile.

The past two years have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced. There have been many ups and downs in motherhood. I remember my heart filling with joy when my boy said, “Mamma” for the first time, and I also remember the worry and frustration I felt as he started to fall behind and was diagnosed with delayed speech development. But my son and I have an indescribable bond. He refuses to fall asleep at night unless I am by his side and his little hands can touch my face. Our family is bound by unbreakable love.

Still, in the back of my mind, the uncertainty about what could happen to our family has never left me. Recently, that anxiety has accelerated. DACA recipients have again become the subjects of a political struggle after President Donald Trump halted the program in September. Our lives are now in the hands of politicians whose extreme partisanship could threaten our livelihood if a permanent solution is not reached.

I find myself thinking about what my family and I will do. If we can’t work, how will we put food on our table? What happens to our son if ICE comes to tear apart our family in the middle of the night? These are painful questions I now have to plan for. There are more than 800,000 DACA youth across the country who face the same questions, many of them also parents. Ending the DACA program is more than just about dollars lost to the economy. It is more than just companies losing employees and it’s more than certain elected officials getting their way. Ending DACA means ending the livelihood of real people. It means homes lost, families living in fear and hunger. It means children like mine crying as they are torn from the arms of their mothers.

Congress has the opportunity to pass a permanent legislative solution to protect Dreamers. Negotiations have been held and shared with the public. I just hope that when they finalize their decisions, they will remember that there are real human lives hanging in the balance.

Korina Iribe Romo is an Arizona State University graduate student, DACA recipient and community organizer. She is advocacy director at the student organization Undocumented Students for Education Equity.

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/230030/im-dreamer-afraid-nightmare/Up Next

82 Rabbis and Jewish Activists Arrested During DACA Protest

A total of 82 rabbis and Jewish activists were arrested on Wednesday during a protest against President Trump ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The protest occurred on Capitol Hill, where over 100 rabbis and Jewish activists conducted a sit-in in the Rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building. The protesters chanted “We will not be moved!” and “Let my people stay!” in favor of the Dreamers. The protesters were also surrounded by red paper that read, “Jews demand a clean Dream Act!”

The 82 protesters were arrested for “crowding, obstructing, or incommoding” in a public building, but most of them are expected to be released.

“We as Jews know the experience of being immigrants,” Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement Associate Director Barbara Weinstein told the Huffington Post, “and as Americans, we’re deeply aware of our history as a nation of immigrants, and that throughout that history immigrants have been a source of strength for this country.”

Before the sit-in, the protesters handed out petitions to congressional members that featured over 5,000 signatures advocating for Congress to pass the Dream Act.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Bend the Arc were among the Jewish organizations at the protest. Members of Congress who stopped by to support the protesters included Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL).

DACA was first implemented as an executive order under the Obama administration in 2012that prevented 800,000 Dreamers from being deported.

The protests come as Congress and the White House are attempting to reach a deal on DACA, but so far no deal appears to be imminent. Congressional Democrats are threatening to block a spending bill that funds the government if there is no DACA deal by Friday.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/229810/82-rabbis-jewish-activists-arrested-daca-protest/Up Next

State Officials Call for Release of Israeli Native Who Crossed Into Mexico

Orr Yakobi, a 22-year-old native of Israel and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) enrollee, is being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after accidentally crossing the border into Mexico on Jan. 7, Jacob Sapochnick, the detainee’s attorney, said.

Sapochnick, who spoke to the Journal in an interview on Jan. 10, said Yakobi, a senior at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), was driving south on Interstate 5 with his friend to the Las Americans outlet mall near the U.S.-Mexico border on Jan. 7. The two somehow drove past the outlet mall, which is located on the border and took the next exit, arriving in Mexico, he said,.

“Once you get there you cannot turn back unless you cross the [U.S.] border,” Sapochnick said.

When they turned around and drove back toward the U.S. border, border patrol stopped the vehicle, “canceled [Yakobi’s] legal status” and apprehended Yakobi, Sapochnick said.

He was was detained by border patrol at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, a land border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana. According to Sapochnick, who is also Israeli, ICE is currently holding Yakobi in Otay Mesa.

“We’re trying to see if we can get him out on parole, but it’s going to take a while,” Sapochnick said, adding, “If you make a mistake … you should not be paying for it the rest of your life. There should be some logic. I hope they will see releasing him. It is the right thing to do.”

On Jan. 10, the California Legislative Jewish Caucus issued a letter calling on ICE to release Yakobi. The letter’s authors include State Sens. Ben Allen and Bob Hertzberg and Assemblymembers Richard Bloom and Marc Levine. They describe the detainee as an “excellent student who is just a few classes away from graduating with a computer science degree from UCSD and has met all of the terms of the DACA program.”

“Because there are no extraordinary circumstances for his continued detention, we ask that Mr. Yakobi be released immediately or at a minimum be paroled from Immigration and Customs Enforcement while the case is reviewed,” the letter says.

The California Legislative Jewish Caucus recently came out in support of the 200,000 Californians currently participating in DACA, according to the organization’s website.

The incident occurred as debate continues over the future of enrollees in DACA, a program that enables people who illegally entered the country as minors to receive renewable periods of deferred action from deportation.

Yakobi is from Kfar Saba. He has been living in the United States since he was 5 years old, nbcsandiego.com reported.

“UC San Diego is working with the student’s family and their attorney to assist in securing his release,” a university statement says.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/california/229593/state-officials-call-release-israeli-native-crossed-mexico/Up Next

Over 212,000 People Forced to Abandon Their Homes As Southern California Fires Rage On

If not now, when will Dreamers be seen as Americans?

Immigration activists and DACA recipients take part in a rally in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

I am the oldest daughter of Mexican immigrants. My dad arrived in the United States in the late 1980s and was a beneficiary of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. He became a permanent resident and gained a pathway to citizenship in 1987. My mom became a U.S. citizen a year later, after she and my dad were married. I was born a year after that.

I grew up in Encino and attended Catholic schools. I traveled to Mexico every couple of years to visit family members and heard stories of my family’s struggles with living in poverty. I also saw the poverty in which many of my family’s neighbors lived.

Here in Los Angeles, I saw the fear and anxiety in which many of my relatives lived because they, unlike my parents, were undocumented. The emotional and mental strain of their instability was agonizing. I watched, feeling powerless, as my cousins hid under the couch every time they heard a siren, in fear that their parents would get deported.

I noticed, too, the disproportionate finances of our households. My parents were homeowners, able to afford the private-school tuition for my sister and me, and able to afford going on vacation. My uncles lived in apartments and did not have the luxury of taking time off work for a vacation. They kept count of the years since they had seen the home they left for a better future.

I celebrated with my family as, one by one, my relatives became permanent residents and American citizens. We kept a tally of who was undocumented in our family, and as the number shrank, we naively came to believe that our worries were over.

But after the White House announced it planned to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)program, which protects children of undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents, many of those worries began to creep up. Not for myself, not for my family, but for Dreamers — the approximately 800,000 recipients covered by the program.

American all but in name, Dreamers entered the United States at the average age of 6, many even younger.

When DACA was established in 2012, its recipients were not offered a permanent residency or a pathway to citizenship. Instead, they received renewable two-year work permits and a Social Security number. Without fear of deportation, they entered the workforce and many enrolled in colleges and universities.

A Social Security number also offered DACA recipients the ability to obtain a driver’s license and to open bank and credit card accounts.

It is easy to take for granted obtaining a driver’s license when in California the law allows a person as young as 15 1/2 to get a driver’s permit. But having to decide whether to risk driving without a license is common for undocumented individuals. Not only must they live with the fear of getting pulled over or getting into an accident, they increase the risk for everyone else on the road because their driving skills are not fully vetted.

This is one of the ways in which the establishment of DACA benefited not only its recipients but the community at large. The access to a driver’s license has meant safer roads for all of us.

Another way in which the larger community benefits is through taxes that DACA recipients pay. A 2014 report by the American Immigration Council found that almost 60 percent of the DACA recipients surveyed had obtained a new job since qualifying for the program, and about 45 percent indicated that their earnings had increased.

While DACA recipients have benefited greatly from the program and have been shielded from deportation, recipients do not have a pathway to citizenship and therefore do not qualify for Social Security benefits. Nor can they apply for financial aid from the federal government.

As a result of President Donald Trump’s decision, DACA recipients whose permits expire after March 5, 2018, stand to lose the protection and benefits that the program provided, and now with the added fear that the government has the information on who they are and where they live.

Dreamers have grown up in this country with their right hand over their hearts, pledging their allegiance to the U.S. and believing in the promise of “liberty and justice for all.” The passing of the Dream Act by Congress is long overdue. Dreamers are American in all but name.

And if not now, then when will they be recognized as such?

Tracy Escobedo, a Los Angeles native, is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and a Jew by Choice.

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/224536/not-now-will-dreamers-seen-americans/Up Next

Why Trump is right on DACA

224534

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/224534/trump-right-daca/

Why Trump is right on DACA

PresidentDonald Trump’s decision on “Dreamers” actually reflects a broadly held, nuanced consensus regarding the status of immigrants brought into this country as children of parents who entered illegally.

First, legal immigration is good for the United States, and the U.S. takes in more legal immigrants than any other nation. But there must be reasonable, debatable and annual limits.

We are a nation of immigrants, and all Americans, born here or not, are equal citizens entitled to the full protection of the law and every opportunity to enjoy the American Dream.

The administration has proposed prioritizing immigrants for our nation’s economic benefit and limiting the scope of family reunification to leverage the economic merit of applicants.

Silicon Valley, for instance, suggests we not deport tech graduates here on student visas once they have computer science degrees in hand. We invested in them, now they can invest in the U.S.

Next, illegal immigration is unlawful, as are sanctuary cities that violate federal law. No country allows illegal immigration, and many countries are much tougher than the U.S.

Illegal immigration results in human rights abuses by coyotes against suffering poor people and invites countries to dump their poor into the U.S. It’s corrupt and nefarious.

Businesses must not be allowed to hire illegals. This distorts the economy and drives down wages in the economy.

And Mexico, one way or another, should reimburse the United States for the decades-long purposeful strategy of exporting Mexican workers in return for importing hundreds of billions of dollars of remittances back to Mexico.

Third, our country will not round up 10 to 20 million unlawful residents and deport them. Our country will also not deport 800,000 Dreamers who work, pay taxes and go to school.

And fourth, Congress must reassert its constitutional authority and obligation to protect our borders and set immigration policy, denying federal aid to “sanctuary” states and cities.

Congress must clarify if Birthright Citizenship — which meant Black slaves and their progeny in the 19th century were full Americans — should continue to reward “birth tourism;” whether illegal immigrants may earn a path to citizenship, voting rights or the ability to run for office; and, finally, the federal penalty for employers hiring illegal workers.

States must decide on the welfare, educational and health benefits to be afforded undocumented workers and their families.

The Dreamers have already won. They have made it to America, built lives of generally good citizenship and are unlikely to be deported in big numbers due to the compassion and common sense of the American people, who respect the rule of law, with fair and reasonable policies regarding immigrants here illegally via border crossing or by over-staying visas.

But the critics of illegal immigration have also won the debate: No blanket amnesty or citizenship status for illegal entrants, except perhaps enlistees of the armed forces; and no patience for violent criminals, many of whom are repeat border violators who must be deported (along with a bill to the countries of origin for our troubles).

Advocates for resolute border security make economic, rule-of-law and national-security arguments for tougher standards and controls of both legal and illegal immigration.

Americans support both a border wall and advanced technologies to increase security in a world of jihadism and weapons of mass destruction.

President Trump, who has asserted his “love” for the Dreamers, is balancing his “America First” / “The Business of America Is Business” policies with the facts on the ground and his knowledge that legal immigration is American.

President Barack Obama repeatedly asserted he lacked unilateral authority to keep the Dreamers, but he did so anyway. President Trump has been well advised to return the policy issues to Congress.

Larry Greenfield has been a Fellow of the Claremont Institute, the Tikvah Advanced Institute, and the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He is former executive director of the California Republican Jewish Coalition, the Reagan Legacy Foundation, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/224534/trump-right-daca/Up Next

The left has an Israel problem. Do colleges have an anti-Semitism problem?

The untold story of DACA’s Israeli recipients

Picture in your mind a “Dreamer,” an immigrant brought to the United States as a child and now living without documentation in this country. Chances are you’re not picturing an Israeli. But here in Los Angeles, young undocumented Jews from Israel are among those facing the looming threat of deportation.

President Donald Trump’s administration recently rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, with a six-month delay to provide time for Congress to plan a path for DACA recipients to gain permanent legal status. Whether that pronouncement sticks remains unclear.

After a meeting with Democratic leaders and a swirl of messages out of the White House, some of them contradictory, Trump said on Sept. 14 he supports legislation to protect the Dreamers, and further consideration of a wall on the southern border would be done separately.

The policy was created during President Barack Obama’s administration in 2012 as a temporary reprieve to shield young undocumented immigrants from deportation. Trump’s Sept. 5 announcement has been roundly criticized by Democrats, many Republicans and Conservative, Reform and unaffiliated Jewish organizations.

There are an estimated 800,000 DACA recipients, the vast majority of them Latino, with 79 percent coming from Mexico. More than a quarter of the total live in California. At a Sept. 10 rally,hundreds of pro-immigration demonstrators gathered in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park, many holding signs written in Spanish and waving Mexican flags.

Israel isn’t among the two dozen countries where most DACA recipients originate. But for various reasons — often having to do with fraudulent legal advice given to their parents — these young Jews are caught in a legal limbo, unable to receive federal student aid or travel outside the country.

While their status is identical to that of other Dreamers, they are different in subtle ways, as their individual stories suggest. For example, because the number of Latinos facing deportation is so much larger, they tend to feel more comfortable sharing their concerns and anxieties with one another.

Not so for Jewish Dreamers. For many, their status is an embarrassing stigma, something they would just as soon hide from even their closest friends.

On the other hand, because Jews are often lighter-skinned than Latinos, they tend not to be subjected to the stares and derision from citizens who support the administration’s decision to eliminate DACA protections.

Furthermore, Jewish Dreamers tend to be better off financially than those from other countries, a distinction that provides securities — even if temporary — that others might not have.

In the end, however, all Dreamers are equal in the eyes of a government policy that would remove them unless a change is forthcoming from a Congress that is deeply divided on immigration issues.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), one of more than a dozen Jewish House members, is among those who favor continuing protections for all Dreamers, including those from Israel.

“The history of the Jewish people is characterized by migration in search of safety and a better future, and I believe our own experience teaches us to empathize with the Dreamers, although relatively few are Jewish or came here from places like Israel,” he said in an email to the Journal. “The administration would treat these young people as unwanted guests in the only country they know. But I view Dreamers as part of the fabric of our nation and believe Congress must act to ensure these young people can continue to live and work in the United States without fear.”

Below are stories of a few undocumented Israeli immigrants. They agreed to share details of their lives with the Journalunder the condition that their last names not be used, and in some cases, that their first names be changed to protect their identities. Although the specifics of their cases differ, they share a feeling of being Americans first and foremost, and face an uncertain future.

‘I don’t even remember what Israel looks like’

Bar, a 16-year-old high school junior in the San Fernando Valley, has known for her entire life that she was undocumented.

“It did suck not to be able to go to Israel and visit when all my friends would go,” she said. “All my family is in Israel.”

A resident of Sherman Oaks, her parents arrived on a tourist visa in 2001, when she was 6 months old. Their visas expired a year after they arrived.

“We were hoping we could fix everything before becoming illegal. We had other people giving us suggestions and it was wrong … bad advice, and we didn’t have the money at that point to fix it,” her father, Ron, said.

Ron ran a clothing factory in downtown Los Angeles and insisted on manufacturing in the U.S. but had to shutter the facility because of the high cost of labor.

“We’re paying all the debts that society is asking to pay, and we’re getting zero benefit out of it,” he said.

“I’m from L.A. This is where I’ve lived my whole life. I don’t even remember what Israel looks like.” — Bar

Undocumented immigrants pay taxes but can’t collect benefits. He now runs a printing and packaging company that outsources to Mexico and China.

Bar’s mother, Karen, works for a catering business, serving and cooking food for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other big events.

Bar joined the DACA program late last year. Some of her friends know she’s undocumented and hope one day she’ll be able to join them on trips to Israel and Mexico. She took a driver education course and hopes to get a license soon but might need to apply for an AB 60 license, available for California residents regardless of immigration status, if her DACA status expires.

She’s been a member of the Tzofim movement (Israel’s scouts program) since seventh grade. Her younger sister and brother are scouts, too. They were born in the U.S. and are citizens.

Bar counsels younger kids in Tzofim. “They all tell me before summer starts, ‘We’re going to Israel,’ and I ask them how is that. Even the youngest kids tell me about their experiences in Israel and their family. I’m very excited to be able to go,” she said.

Bar works for a birthday party business where she paints little kids’ faces, dances with them and dresses up as characters from the popular Israeli children‘s show “Yuval Hamebulbal,” a dinosaur and a fire-fighting dog. After she graduates from high school, she expects to go to community college and transfer to a four-year university to study business and fashion design.

If the DACA program is canceled, putting her at risk of deportation, she said it would be “really, really upsetting.”

“I’m from L.A. This is where I’ve lived my whole life. I don’t even remember what Israel looks like,” she said.

‘This affects kids who are pretty much American in every way’

Eli grew up in Beverly Hills and describes himself as “a typical Persian-Jewish kid” in all ways but one: He’s in the country illegally. He was born in Tel Aviv and came here in 1991, when he was 8 years old. His parents overstayed their visa when their green card application was denied.

He earned a degree from UCLA, paying his tuition out of his own pocket, and hoped to go to law school but knew he wouldn’t be allowed to practice. He struggled for years with low-paying jobs.

“A soon as I got my DACA [status] in December 2013, three months later I got hired by a Fortune 500 company,” he said. “I knew I had the ability all along but I couldn’t prove it, because I didn’t have access to a real job.”

Now in his mid-30s, he owns his own business, offering “professional services” to corporate clients.

Outside of a small group of friends and his girlfriend, nobody knows about his status.

“I don’t want to jeopardize my business or do anything that can cause harm to that. In the Persian-Jewish community people talk, and I don’t want that information out,” he said.

Eli is a fitness enthusiast, spending hours a day at the gym training in Brazilian jiu jitsu. He considers himself a hard worker, a self-made entrepreneur, and can’t understand why people wouldn’t want him to be a citizen. After all, he said, he had no say in his parents’ decision to come to the U.S. and overstay their visa.

“You can’t blame somebody who didn’t commit the crime,” he said. “If you pull somebody over and their grandson is in the backseat, you don’t give the grandson in the backseat a ticket.”

He knows plenty of Iranian-American Jews who support Trump, and he doesn’t fault them for it.

“None of them go to KKK or neo-Nazi rallies or anti-immigration rallies. They’re pro-Trump mostly because of his pro-Israel stance, and they make good money and want tax breaks,” he said.

But he said he thinks a lot of them do have a racial bias.

“They look down on Mexican immigrants as low-skilled labor. They mow their lawn and garden their backyard and take care of their kids. … A lot of them probably think we should send them back to Mexico. They don’t understand this affects kids who are pretty much American in every way other than the fact that they don’t have their citizenship here, don’t have their green card.”

‘I’ll take my American education and I’ll go somewhere else’

Rebecca’s parents came to the U.S. when she was 12 years old. They planned to return to Israel after their B-2 tourist visa expired.

“When we got here, we started to feel like we wanted to stay here,” she said. They hired a lawyer who “ended up being a crook,” and their visa expired, she said.

Now 23, Rebecca has spent roughly half her life in the United States.

“My heart is in two different places. It’s hard every day to make the choice to be here. And it’s still a choice, despite all the inconveniences of being undocumented,” she said.

When she gained DACA status in 2012, “everything really changed.” The California Dream Act enabled her to receive state financial aid at UCLA, where she graduated with a double major in anthropology and Arabic.

While at UCLA, she participated in UndocuBruins, a research grant program for undocumented students and received funding to work with a South L.A. nonprofit that trains previously incarcerated people to work on urban farms in “food deserts.”

After she “decided that urban farming is really cool,” Rebecca completed a three-month fellowship at a Jewish community farm in Berkeley called Urban Adamah. Much like a kibbutz, the fellows live and farm together. This summer she worked as a garden educator at a Jewish summer camp in northern California and is now working with other UCLA grads at a startup nonprofit called COMPASS for Youth, which provides counseling for at-risk and homeless youth in Los Angeles.

Her undocumented status has inspired her to help others.

“I feel really blessed for that, because it’s opened my eyes and made me empathetic toward the stories of so many people that I wouldn’t have been able to empathize with beforehand,” she said.

“A lot of doors have been closed on me, and I had to push through a lot of doors. I got a lot of help [and] a lot of community support. … I’m grateful.”— Rebecca

While at UCLA, she was active at Hillel and in the Jewish community, but she had to navigate her place among the mostly Latino undocumented students and the feeling of guilt that accompanies a recognition of privilege.

“Ironically, my dad is also a construction worker, just like the dads of many of the undocumented folks that I know … [but] my dad’s been able to be more successful because he has resources, and he’s not Mexican, so he’s not looked at in a particular way. I look like a white person, so I don’t experience the sort of racist reality that comes with being undocumented in America.”

Rebecca’s mother is a self-published writer of poetry in Hebrew and English.

“A lot of [the poems] are about being away from home and being separated from her family. Her dad passed away while we were here, a few years into being here. So she wasn’t able to see him for the few last years of his life, and then not at his death, not at his funeral, and not now, many years later,” she said.

Rebecca was afraid of deportation, but becoming a DACA recipient “has given me breathing room,” she said. She’d rather move to Israel on her own terms than be deported, but hopes to stay here. She’s trying to make the world a better place in her own way.

Despite the fear that comes with being undocumented, “the immigrant experience is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said.

“I was totally uprooted and I had to cope, and assimilated to something that was 100 percent foreign to me. And that was really hard,” she added. “A lot of doors have been closed on me, and I had to push through a lot of doors. I got a lot of help [and] a lot of community support. … I’m grateful.”

‘The dreams come true here’

In the heart of affluent Beverly Hills, 17-year-old Jason harbors a secret. His family came from Israel when he was 5, and someone posing as a lawyer botched their citizenship applications and disappeared. Their work permits expired, and now Jason, his parents, and his younger brother live in the shadows.

His friends don’t know. Neither did his girlfriend, whom he considered marrying in order to gain a path to legal status. His parents actually pressured him to propose even though he knew “she would freak out, like, big time” if she found out he was undocumented.

Jason became a DACA recipient in 2015.

“I had no idea what it was,” he said. In fact, until that point, his parents hadn’t told him or his younger brother about their immigration status.

“They didn’t know we were illegal because we didn’t want them to talk to their friends,” his father, Avi, said. “Only when the DACA program came out, after talking to Neil [Sheff, their immigration lawyer], only then we told the kids.”

Jason plays guitar and plans to enroll in a music program after graduating from Beverly Hills High School. But his immigration status has complicated his plans.

“I do want to travel at some point, and if I’m not documented I can’t do that,” he said.

Returning to Israel is not an option, his parents say.

“I have nothing to do in Israel,” his mother, Ravital, said. “It’s hard to live there. Here, it’s an easier life. The dreams come true here.”

Daniel, their 13-year-old son, wants to be an actor. Because he’s too young to gain DACA status, he can’t get a work permit and audition for roles.

“Now that [Trump] canceled it, it’s a lot harder. It’s impossible, unless I get married to an American girl,” Daniel said with a laugh.

Ravital owns a skin care company, and Avi works in software development. “We do everything by the book, and we find a way to pay taxes on time,” Ravital said.

“We probably pay more taxes than Trump,” Avi added.

Many of their Israeli and Orthodox Jewish friends are Trump supporters, and they fear social alienation if their immigration status is discovered. “Before you called, we closed all the windows around the house,” Avi admitted. “The stigma of people who are illegal here is very bad.”

‘Remember the stranger and the foreigner in your land’

There’s a disconnect between Jews and undocumented immigrants, says Beverly Hills immigration attorney Neil Sheff, who speaks Hebrew and Spanish fluently. About half of his clients are Israeli, and he hears a lot of rhetoric against immigration reform from his fellow Jews, even those born in other countries.

“Their responses are usually, ‘We came here the legal way.’ When many of the Jewish immigrants came here, the immigration laws were so relaxed and the process was so much easier, everyone could come here the legal way,” he said.

Sheff believes there are many Israelis living in L.A. without documentation, as well as Jews from South Africa, Russia and an increasing number from France, looking to escape their country’s rising tide of anti-Semitism.

“Their plight isn’t really acknowledged by the greater Jewish community, especially the Orthodox Jewish community,” which supports Trump because they consider him to be pro-Israel, Sheff said.

The Torah extolls Jews 36 times to treat strangers well, “for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

“It’s part and parcel of who we are as Jews to remember the stranger and the foreigner in your land,” Sheff said. “That should translate immediately to empathy for the immigrants here, whether they are immigrants who have been here for generations or just arrived.”

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/224393/untold-story-daca-israeli-recipients/Up Next

Who are the Jewish ‘Dreamers’?

Immigrants and DACA supporters rallying across the street from the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Las Vegas on Sept. 10. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Our email inboxes were stuffed last week with statements from Jewish organizations urging continued protection for “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

Last Monday, President Donald Trump said he was giving six months notice to end the DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, launched by his predecessor, Barack Obama, in 2011. Trump has signaled a willingness to sign congressional legislation that would codify its provisions.

One statement, though, from Agudath Israel of America, stood out in its concern not just about Dreamers, but Jewish Dreamers.

“It affects hundreds of thousands of young people, including many in the Jewish community, who have grown up and been educated in the United States, the only home they have known,” the haredi Orthodox organization said in its statement issued Thursday.

We covered one such Dreamer who has become an activist, Elias Rosenfeld of Boston, but I was curious about the “many in the Jewish community” in the release. Agudah put me in touch with David Grunblatt, the lay chairman of its immigration task force and the co-head of the immigration department at Proskauer, a major law firm.

Grunblatt told me that he started hearing from Jewish Dreamers almost as soon as Agudah put out a release offering to assist them, soon after DACA was launched in 2012.

He said the number of Jewish Dreamers among the 800,000 known to have applied for protections under DACA was “not huge but not negligible,” and there were a variety of reasons for their illegal status among the cases he has handled.

“They tried to apply for a green card or for employment sponsorship, and it went wrong and they’ve been here five or six or seven years and they’re not going anywhere,” Grunblatt said. “Or a family comes here because someone in the family needs medical treatment, they stay six months, another six months, another six months and the situation is resolved one way or the other — but the family is here.”

In some cases, he said, parents successfully obtain green cards but fail to obtain them for their children.

The case of Rosenfeld, a Venezuelan native, involved an illness: His mother, a media executive, traveled to the United States on an L1 visa, which allows specialized, managerial employees to work for the U.S. office of a parent company. When he was in the fifth grade, his mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer. She died two years later.

Grunblatt said that in one case, he was contacted by an all-girls school.

“They discovered one of the girls in the school was undocumented because they were going on a school trip to Canada and the kid didn’t even know [if] she was documented,” he said.

That’s fairly common, said Melanie Nezer, a vice president at HIAS, the lead Jewish organization handling immigration advocacy.

“If a child is brought over when they’re a baby or a very young child, they just grow up American,” she said. “They speak English — why would they think they’re different from anyone else?”

While support for the Dreamers has been fairly bipartisan, and Jewish organizational consensus is for a solution that lets them stay in the country, some Jews have major qualms about the program — especially with the way it was created by executive order under Obama.

“If the Obama administration wanted to implement the DACA program, it should have made the case to Congress and try to pass its proposal into law,” Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, said in a statement. “The administration absolutely did not have the authority to write its own ‘laws.’

“If the proposal did not have the support to pass, then it should not go into effect. That is how our process is designed and must be respected.”

Zeldin said he is “open” to debating the issue with his colleagues, but “[m]y priority will always unapologetically remain with fighting for the people following the laws rather than the ones breaking them.”

Nezer said her impression was that the majority of Dreamers fit the profile that gets the most prominent play in the media: those who arrive here as babies or toddlers with their parents from Mexico or Central America.

But, she said, that the population is more diverse than that template — and includes Jews — should not surprise members of the Jewish community.

“Our parents and grandparents took these risks not for themselves but for us,” Nezer said. “And that’s exactly what the Dreamers’ parents did.”

Few lives track an easy trajectory, Grunblatt said, and Dreamers are no different.

“It’s life,” he said. “Things happen in life, plans go awry, ambitions fail and people end up here.”

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/224287/who-are-the-jewish-dreamers/Up Next

ADL alarmed by author speaking to Congress who links gun control and Holocaust

Trump is heartless and cruel

President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 5. Photo by Joshua Roberts/Reuters

A narcissist is a person concerned only about himself. He sees the world through a lens reflecting just his image. Everything is a function of his ego. He is hypersensitive to slights. He bristles at criticism. If it serves his interests, he attacks, maligns, humiliates, and obliterates those he perceives as a threat.

When a narcissist is President of the United States, his actions, words, and policies can be cruel, and cruelty is the only word that adequately describes Trump’s action against 800,000 children of undocumented people who have committed no crime.

Trump’s cancellation of DACA instituted six years ago by the Executive Order by President Obama, despite the urging of Trump’s advisors and many fellow Republicans not to do so, is without question the ugliest action he has taken since becoming President. In my memory, this is the ugliest action taken by any president in my lifetime.

Countless Jewish organizations have condemned Trump’s decision including the Union for Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the American Jewish Committee, the ADL, Bend the Arc, J Street, Amenu, the National Council of Jewish Women, Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, the Shalom Center, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Why did Trump do it? The writer John Binder in Breitbart News tried to justify Trump’s action:

“Ending DACA could be a major stimulus for the 4.4 percent of unemployed Americans who will see more than 700,000 new job openings across the United States.”

“… ludicrous. It assumes none of the Dreamers are self-employed, that their roles can easily be filled by the ranks of the remaining unemployed – many of whom are far less well-educated, less well-trained, less motivated, far older or not even living in areas where the Dreamers work. Some 250 work for Apple – in what fantasy world are those jobs just ripe for the picking? But Breitbart knows that.”

And so, what’s this all about?

It seems to me that Trump was motivated by two things:

First, he hates Obama never missing an opportunity to trash policies of the Obama administration. It doesn’t matter what good Obama did for the country and for millions of people. If the policy was Obama’s, Trump has sought to reverse it.

Second, Trump recognizes that his shrinking power-base has to be fed continually. His base of nativist, xenophobic, white supremacist, and anti-immigrant bigots will stay close if he speaks and acts to their dark impulses. According to polls, Trump is now losing everyone else at the rate of one percentage point each week.

Thankfully, for the sake of these 800,000 children of undocumented immigrants, there is a potential silver lining. Not only has the nation reacted negatively across political lines to Trump’s decision, Republicans are working in a bi-partisan effort with Democrats in Congress to legislate a compassionate and humane solution for the dreamers.

As more and more Republicans lose faith in Trump and see him for who he really is, many Republicans in Congress will be guided not by partisan politics but by a true moral compass. That will be good not only for the DACA people, but for the country.

https://jewishjournal.com/blogs/rabbijohnrosovesblog/224177/trump-heartless-cruel/Up Next

Garcetti denounces Trump plan to end DACA at AJC event

Inside Wilshire Boulevard Temple on Sept. 5, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti denounced President Donald Trump’s decision announced earlier that day to rescind protections for children brought into the U.S. illegally, saying, “This is a day — a dark day — for this nation and for the city.”

Outside, left-leaning groups accused the mayor of not doing enough to protect those children.

“What do we want? Sanctuary! When do we want it? Now!” came the chants from a coalition that included Jewish Voice for Peace, Black Lives Matter, Ground Game L.A. and Democratic Socialists of America.

The event inside the synagogue, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), had been scheduled before the announcement of Trump’s decision on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama administration initiative.

Addressing an audience of about 100, including some who turned their backs tohim, Garcetti said he was disappointed in the Trump decision, calling it “un-American.”

But the mayor’s remarks were insufficient for the protesters outside.

“We are here because Mayor Garcetti, Police Chief (Charlie) Beck and Sheriff (Jim) McDonnell have had a history of talking big about how they are protecting immigrants without having the policy to back up some of their stances,” said Meghan Choi, a lead organizer with Ground Game L.A., a grass-roots civic engagement organization.

Actions like the protest outside the synagogue are becoming more common across the country, Steven Windmueller, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, whose expertise includes American- Jewish political behavior, told the Journal.

“I am detecting over the past eight months, a ‘radicalization’ of the left in opposition to the current administration, contributing to the further rise of socialists, anarchists and others, who I would describe as ‘rejectionists’ opposed to the President and his policies, but also unhappy with the Democratic Party,” Windmueller wrote in an email.

Trump’s decision, announced hours before the AJC event, gave Congress six months to develop a permanent solution for the 800,000 young adults, sometimes referred to as Dreamers, who currently qualify for protection under DACA.

Garcetti, who is of Latino-Jewish ancestry, said the decision to phase out DACA was personal, given his family’s history of coming to the United States illegally.

“We didn’t have the term back then, but my grandfather, Salvador, was a Dreamer, carried over the border by my bisabuela, great-grandmother,” he said.

At times raising his voice, Garcetti called on Congress to pass legislation that would codify DACA protections. He specifically mentioned Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who have expressed support for Dreamers but have not pushed for legislation to permanently legalize their status.

“Thanks for the words,” Garcetti said, “but it is time for Congress to act.

“Let us explode the myth of those who want to divide us and want us to divide each other,” he said. “We can’t afford that. We can’t afford to yell at one another, and we can’t afford to buy into the myths.”

Hours before the synagogue event, the AJC released a statement condemning the president’s action against DACA.

“Dismantling DACA is a devastating blow to hundreds of thousands of young people who have benefited from the program — and who have in turn contributed to communities across the country in which they live,” Richard Fotlin, the AJC’s director of national and legislative affairs, said in the statement.

In addition to Garcetti, the AJC event featured a panel that included Sheriff McDonnell; Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Horace Frank; and Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Cindy Chang. Dan Schnur, director of the AJC’s Los Angeles region, moderated.

The panel also discussed how law enforcement and immigrant communities can maintain trust with one another. That issue is at the core of a state Senate bill that would prohibit law enforcement agencies from sharing data for immigration enforcement purposes.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/los_angeles/224135/garcetti-denounces-trump-plan-end-daca-ajc-event/Up Next

A Jewish ‘Dreamer’ is scared, but refuses to despair

Elias Rosenfeld, a sophomore at Brandeis University, speaking at a rally at Boston’s Faneuil Hall hours after President Trump announced he was rescinding DACA protections for some 800,000 young people on Sept. 5. Photo by Jeremy Burton/JCRC of Greater Boston

At 15, Elias Rosenfeld became a “Dreamer.”

At the time, the Venezuela native was attending Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami, where he had lived since he was 6 years old, when his Jewish family moved to South Florida from Caracas. His mother was a media executive and they traveled to the United States on an L1 visa, which allows specialized, managerial employees to work for the U.S. office of a parent company.

But tragedy struck the family: When Rosenfeld was in the fifth grade, his mother was diagnosed with kidney cancer. She died two years later.

In high school, Rosenfeld applied for a driver’s permit, only to find out that he lacked the required legal papers. He discovered that his mother’s death voided her visa. He and his older sister were undocumented.

“It was an embarrassing moment for me,” Rosenfeld recalled more than five years later.

Within five months, in June 2012, President Barack Obama signed an executive order, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, granting temporary, renewable legal status to young unauthorized immigrants who had been brought to America by their parents as children.

Known as DACA, the order opened up a world of opportunities for some 800,000 young people who were now able to apply for driver’s licenses, temporary work permits and college. “Dreamers” refers to a bipartisan bill, known as the Dream Act, that would have offered them a path to legal residency.

“It was the power of one order that can so directly change one’s life,” Rosenfeld said. “That launched me. I became an advocate.”

He launched United Student Immigrants, a nonprofit to assist undocumented students that has been credited with raising tens of thousands of dollars for help with scholarships and applications.

Rosenfeld, now a 20-year-old sophomore at Brandeis University on a full scholarship, spoke with JTA at a rally Tuesday outside of this city’s Faneuil Hall, just hours after President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced they would rescind DACA. The president gave Congress a six-month window to preserve the program through legislation. Or not.

The Boston protest was organized by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, where Rosenfeld is an intern. He shared his story with several hundred people at the quickly organized rally.

He explained that DACA enabled him to drive, buy his first car, and apply for internships, jobs and scholarships.

“Today’s news was cruel and devastating. Now is not the time of despair, however, but to put our energy towards effective action,” he said, urging the crowd to work for protective legislation at the federal and state levels. There are some 8,000 DACA residents in Massachusetts.

Several Jewish communal leaders attended the rally, including Jeremy Burton, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, and Jerry Rubin, president of Jewish Vocational Services. Representatives from the New England Jewish Labor Committee, which helped spread the word of the rally, held signs in the crowd.

Another Dreamer, Filipe Zamborlini, who came to the U.S. from Brazil when he was 12 and now works as a career coach at Jewish Vocational Services, also spoke.

“We’re going to mourn today,” Zamborlini, 28, told the assembly.

The New England Jewish Labor Committee helped spread the word about a rally in Boston in support of DACA, Sept. 5, 2017. (Marion Davis/Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition)

Rosenfeld said the Trump administration’s decision was disturbing and unsettling.

“There’s a high level of fear and anxiety in DACA communities,” he told JTA.

Rosenfeld recalls too well the sting and uncertainty of being undocumented.

“It means you can’t do everything your peers and your friends are doing. You feel American, but you are suffering these consequences from choices you didn’t make,” he said.

But he also sounded a note of optimism, pointing out that Trump called on Congress to act.

“We hope Congress follows their president’s word now and does the job of passing one of the many pieces of legislation” before them, Rosenfeld said.

He readily admits to feeling scared and anxious.

“But I’m also feeling empowered and motivated from seeing the outpouring of support,” locally and across the country, he said.

To DACA opponents, including Jewish supporters of Trump, Rosenfeld asks them to look at the facts and the stories of people like himself.

“I don’t think it aligns with our values, with Jewish values and the Jewish community,” he said of a policy that would essentially strip a generation of people raised here of official recognition.

Rosenfeld cited the activism of a group called Torah Trumps Hate, which opposes policies that it considers anathema to values contained in Jewish teachings.

Growing up, his family attended synagogue often and celebrated Shabbat and Jewish holidays.

Despite the hardships he faced following his mother’s death, Rosenfeld excelled in high school. He completed 13 Advanced Placement courses and ranked among the top 10 percent of his graduating class, according to a Miami-Dade County school bulletin. Rosenfeld was widely recognized as a student leader, receiving several awards and honors. During the presidential campaign, he volunteered for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Many students who were undocumented live in constant fear, even after receiving temporary legal status under DACA, Rosenfeld said.

“There is fear behind the shadows,” he said. “We are always behind the shadows.”

Earlier in the day, before the president’s announcement, Brandeis President Ron Liebowitz sent a letter to Trump urging him not to undo DACA.

“Here at Brandeis University, we value our DACA students, who enrich our campus in many ways and are integral to our community,” the letter said. “Reversing DACA inflicts harsh punishment on the innocent. As a nation founded by immigrants, we can, should, and must do better.”

Rosenfeld was attracted to Brandeis both for its academics and its commitment to social justice. He is studying political science, sociology and law, with plans to continue his advocacy work on behalf of immigrants. He hopes one day to attend law school and work in politics or practice law.

With a full schedule of courses and volunteer work, Rosenfeld gets by without much sleep, he acknowledged with an easy laugh.

The Brandeis administration has been supportive, he said, and there is a meeting later this week on campus to discuss school policy on the issue.

Asked what America means to him, Rosenfeld does not hesitate.

“It means my country. It’s my home. There’s a connection. I want to contribute,” he said. “I just don’t think it’s valuable to want to kick out people that want to contribute to this country.”

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/224050/jewish-dreamer-scared-refuses-despair/Up Next

The lie at the heart of the DACA repeal

Protesters gather to show support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in Los Angeles on Sept. 1. Photo by Kyle Grillot/Reuters

President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind DACA only makes sense if you remember Charlottesville.

You have to recall what the white supremacists who marched in that Virginia town chanted: “You will not replace us! You will not replace us!”

Sure, they lapsed into, “Jews will not replace us,” but DACA isn’t about being anti-Semitic, it’s about being anti-Them.

Trump’s order to phase out Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in six months would affect some 800,000 young people who were brought to this country as children when their parents crossed the border illegally. They had no more complicity in that action than a toddler strapped inside a getaway car is guilty of bank robbery. They’ve known no other country but the United States, where they went to school, found jobs (some 91 percent are employed) and made lives.

By canceling DACA, Trump would be uprooting these people and sending them back to countries they do not know, whose languages some of them do not even speak. And for what?

Despite what Trump’s ever-dwindling number of defenders claim, repealing DACA has nothing to do with whether President Barack Obama’s executive order was constitutional.

As others have pointed out, a guy concerned with our nation’s highest laws doesn’t pardon a guy like Joe Arpaio, indicted for subverting it. And if he really wanted Congress to exercise its rightful power in passing a law for the Dreamers, why give them a six-month deadline before phasing out DACA? Why not a year? Kicking it to Congress demonstrates Trump’s essential cowardice.

No, what Trump wants to do is make good on an applause line from his campaign rallies, promising his die-hard supporters that he would put an end to DACA. They’re not interested in a go-slow approach that would put the measure on more solid constitutional footing. They’re not interested in a compromise that would maximize the potential good these hundreds of thousands of Dreamers can bestow on America. They’re not interested in fairness, because how is it fair to punish someone for something they didn’t do?

So, what are they interested in? One clue can be found in the Breitbart story announcing Trump’s decision. Its headline is, “Open Borders, Corporate Interests Brace for End of DACA.” In other words, the only people who these Trump supporters think care about making sure these Americans stay in America are the “globalists.”

The story’s writer, John Binder, claims that with the Dreamers out, some 30,000 jobs will open up each month.

“Ending DACA could be a major stimulus for the 4.4 percent of unemployed Americans who will see more than 700,000 new job openings across the United States,” Binder writes.

That’s ludicrous, of course. It assumes none of the Dreamers are self-employed, that their roles can easily be filled by the ranks of the remaining unemployed — many of whom are far less well-educated, less well-trained, less motivated, far older or not even living in areas where the Dreamers work. Some 250 work for Apple — in what fantasy world are those jobs just ripe for the picking? But Breitbart knows that.

Shafting the Dreamers is not about the promise that an eager army of neglected (white) Americans will magically slip into the work shoes of the 700,000 gainfully employed Dreamers. It’s about the fear that these Americans are no longer needed at all. “You will not replace us!” The Charlottesville chant echoes in Trump’s shortsighted and cruel new action. See, he is saying, I won’t let them — these brown, line-hopping hordes — replace you.

It doesn’t matter that setting these Dreamers loose on America boosts the economy and will improve the future for us all, as every highly motivated group of immigrants, from Irish to Italians to Jews to Latinos, has done throughout American history. It’s not about reality, it’s about revenge. If you think you’re going to replace us, take this.

There’s a tragic coda to Breitbart’s gloating story. On the very same website is a story about Alonso Guillen, 31, a disc jockey in Lufkin, Texas. Four days after Hurricane Harvey submerged Houston, Guillen volunteered to pilot a rescue boat. He and two friends were en route to the boat when their truck struck a bridge and overturned, throwing the men into the raging current of Cypress Creek. Guillen drowned. According to his family, Guillen was a recipient of the DACA program — his parents brought him from Piedras Negras, Mexico, when he was a child. His father became a legal permanent resident. His mother, Rita Ruiz de Guillen, was in Mexico awaiting approval of her immigration application when she heard of her son’s death. When she tried to enter the United States to attend the funeral, immigration officials turned her back.

“I’ve lost a great son, you have no idea,” his mother told reporters. “I’m asking God to give me strength.”

Jewish groups attack Trump’s DACA decision as immoral

Demonstrators protest in front of the White House after the Trump administration scrapped the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Sept. 5. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

An array of Jewish groups and lawmakers attacked as immoral President Donald Trump’s move to end an Obama-era program granting protections to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.

The Trump administration said Sept. 5 that it would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in six months. President Barack Obama had launched DACA in 2011 after multiple attempts failed in Congress to pass an immigration bill that would settle the status of 11 million undocumented immigrants. The program protected those who arrived as children from deportation and granted them limited legal status.

In statements, Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the principal objection to Obama’s so-called Dreamers program was that it was unconstitutional because it was established by an executive order, and indicated that Trump was ready to sign any congressional legislation that would accommodate the “Dreamers.” It was unclear what would happen in the meantime or, should Congress not pass legislation, what would happen to the 800,000 people who have sought and received DACA’s protections.

Trump, in a statement, said his hand was forced by attorneys general from conservative states who plan to sue to kill DACA.

“The attorney general of the United States, the attorneys general of many states and virtually all other top legal experts have advised that the program is unlawful and unconstitutional and cannot be successfully defended in court,” he said.

Republican leaders in Congress have expressed a willingness to pass the legislation necessary to protect the affected immigrants, but Jewish groups and lawmakers said ending the program presented immoral perils, given the failures of Congress in the past to agree on comprehensive immigration reform.

“DACA recognized these individuals for who they are: Americans in everything but paperwork,” Melanie Nezer, the vice president for public affairs of HIAS, a major Jewish immigrant advocacy group. “Their hopes and dreams are no different from kids who are born here, and there is no legitimate reason for inflicting this needless suffering on them and their families.”

The Reform movement called the action “morally misguided” and demanded that Congress act to redress the rescission.

“It is imperative that Congress step up in support of these young people who grew up in the United States and who want to give back to the only country they know as home,” said Rabbi Jonah Pesner, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center. “We call on Congress to protect DACA recipients from deportation by immediately passing a clean bipartisan Dream Act of 2017 — and on the president to support it.”

Richard Foltin, the American Jewish Committee’s director of government affairs, called the decision “devastating,” and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it was one of “a long list of actions and policies by this administration that have deeply hurt immigrants and their families.” The ADL noted the pardoning last month of Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff who had been convicted of discriminatory practices against Latinos, and the threat to withdraw funding from cities offering sanctuary to undocumented immigrants.

Other Jewish organizations condemning the decision included Bend the Arc, J Street, the National Council of Jewish Women, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, the Shalom Center and the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. Bend the Arc listed rallies across the country it would join to oppose the decision.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body for public policy, said it “strongly opposed” the decision and called on Congress to act to protect the “Dreamers.”

“The Jewish community has a long history of active engagement in the struggles of new immigrants and in development of our nation’s immigration policy,” it said. “We believe that Congress must enact a permanent solution and we call on lawmakers to act immediately to protect immigrant youth by passing the ‘Dream Act of 2017,’ bipartisan legislation that would replace fear and uncertainty with permanent protection.”

Jewish Democrats also slammed the decision.

“Terminating #DACA now puts 800,000 talented young #DREAMers who love, contribute to, and live in America officially at risk of deportation,” Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Twitter.

Terminating #DACA now puts 800,000 talented young #DREAMers who love, contribute to, and live in America officially at risk of deportation.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Engel’s counterpart on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the decision was “clearly written with little thought of the human consequences.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the decision “cruel and arbitrary.”

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, in a long and anguished statement, said he supported Trump’s decision but added that he would work to pass legislation to protect the undocumented immigrants.

“I am very much willing to work with any of my colleagues on either side of the aisle on this issue and others to find common ground however possible,” he said. “Working together productively and substantively, I am hugely confident that long overdue progress can absolutely be achieved at least in part to move the needle more in the right direction.”

Dreamers and their supporters on the night of Sept. 4 held a candlelight vigil outside the home of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the daughter and son-in-law of the president. The couple, who both serve as advisers to the president, reportedly advocated for continuing DACA.

https://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/223986/jewish-groups-attack-trumps-daca-decision-immoral/Up Next

Getting involved in California’s crisis of uncertainty

Each May, I head to Sacramento with scores of Jewish community members from across California to meet with legislators on issues that impact our State. Whether it is state budget deficits affecting programs that assist low-income seniors, anti-Semitism on our college campuses, or combatting human trafficking, we stand up for the basic rights and well-being of all Californians. While every year we face uncertainties, 2017 appears to be a year of unusual challenge in light of the policy changes coming out of Washington.

This May promises to be different in Sacramento because California is facing a crisis of uncertainty. Will the Affordable Care Act be dismantled? What about Medicare and Medi-Cal? How will federal policy changes impact DACA immigrants in California? How can we protect the most vulnerable Californians who depend on federally funded safety net programs? These are just a few of troubling unknowns we must grapple with.

California has a Democratic super majority in the State Legislature. Our leaders, Governor Jerry Brown, Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin DeLeon, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, and newly appointed Attorney General Xavier Becerra have all unequivocally made clear that they will fight to protect Californians from attempts to roll back the progress we have made. We, the California Jewish community, must show our support by joining them in the fights that lie ahead.

For many of us, momentum is building to “do something.” I, like so many others, want to be engaged in the political process to ensure that the basic human and civil rights of all Californians are protected. The Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California (JPAC) provides access to that engagement. JPAC is working closely with the California Legislature and like-minded groups to build support across party lines. JPAC’s Advocacy Day is the culminating effort of months of research, coalition building and convening to bring concerned citizens from the Jewish community to Sacramento to meet with key legislators on issues that impact our State. I will be there this May, and I hope that many others will join me in working together to make the voice of the Jewish community heard where it counts- standing up for human rights and equality in our State.

Julie K. Zeisler is an independent non-profit consultant based in Los Angeles and the Association Director of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California.

https://jewishjournal.com/opinion/214425/getting-involved-californias-crisis-uncertainty/Up Next

Make America just (again)

At the height of the escape from Egypt, the Israelites are encamped on the banks of the Reed Sea and the Egyptians are bearing down on them. The Israelites and Moses are crying out to God. In a surprising twist God answers Moses: “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward!” Rabbi Eliezer expands God’s words thus: “The Holy One of Blessing said to Moses: ‘Moses, my children are in trouble! The sea is closing in on them, and the enemy is chasing them, and you are standing and praying?!!’”

There is a time for prayer and a time for action. We are now in a time that demands action.

Donald Trump has made immigration, refugees, and immigrants a target since the beginning of his candidacy. He now seems to be fulfilling his promises to build a wall (which the American taxpayer and not Mexico will end up paying for); deny entry to refugees based on their religious belief; establish a belief and values test for entry; empower local police to act as immigration and deportation agents; renew and expand contracts with private prisons to imprison immigrants without trial or representation for the sole “crime” of being undocumented.

This is all inimical to Jewish tradition and American values.

The great 12th century philosopher and jurist, Moses Maimonides, OBM, taught that the commandment to not return a runaway slave to his master (“You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. He shall live with you in any place he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill-treat him.” (Deut. 23:16)) is given to “makes us protect and defend those who seek our protection and not deliver them over to those from whom they have fled. It is not even enough to protect those who seek your protection, for you are under another obligation toward him: you must consider his interest, be beneficent toward him, and not pain his heart by speech.” Maimonides further taught that this law is imposed upon us in regard to all who seek refuge regardless of their relative status in society. (Guide for the Perplexed III:39)

While the history of the United States is spotty at best in regard to welcoming strangers, and giving comfort to the weak—Native Americans were subjected to genocidal treatment; Africans were brought to this country by force as chattel to produce wealth for their masters and die—the ideals of the country give hope for its perfectibility. The preamble of the Constitution sets out as its task the creation of a more perfect Union—that is, the admission that the current Union is not perfect but perfectible. The first way that this more perfect Union might be established is by establishing Justice. Justice might reasonably be defined in line with the Declaration of Independence as: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” When one group is discriminated against systemically, by denying them entry to the country or by denying them the privileges of citizenship once they are in the country, the country is no longer pursuing justice. To quote Martin Luther King “America has defaulted on this promissory note [which guarantees these unalienable rights].” However we must with King “refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.”

In order to walk in the way of righteousness and prove that the bank of justice is not bankrupt, the Jewish community must stand with all right-minded communities to

– Support the creation of “Sanctuary Cities” across the country which will not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the involuntary deportation of undocumented residents;

– Urge cities and states to set aside resources which will guarantee access to counsel to insure due process for all those involved in deportation proceedings;

– Support the permanent extension of DACA until such time as a path to citizenship is created;

– Support a broad immigration reform which would allow eleven million undocumented residents of this country a path to becoming US citizens;

– Oppose the creation of a deportation force, or the channeling of extra funds to ICE or the Border Patrol so that they act as a deportation force;

– Support the closing of detention centers where immigrants are held in prison-like conditions despite the fact that they are not charged with any crime;

– Oppose the use of private prisons in general and specifically for incarcerating undocumented immigrants.

We have entered upon dark times, but we cannot despair. We must act justly and then “God will cause your vindication to shine forth like the light, the justice of your case, like the noonday sun.” (Psalms 37:6) This is how we make America great.

Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Cohen is Professor of Rabbinic Literature at the American Jewish University and Rabbi in Residence at Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.